He’s green. He’s fast. Honestly, he’s kinda annoying to look at. If you’ve played Clash of Clans for more than five minutes, you probably think the Goblin is just a filler unit, something you use when you're bored or when you’ve run out of Elixir for the "real" troops. Most people look at the Goblin and see a weak, low-HP unit that dies the second a Mortar shell even thinks about landing near him. They're wrong.
Actually, they're completely wrong.
The Goblin in Clash of Clans is arguably the most efficient resource-gathering machine ever coded into a mobile game. While your clanmates are wasting 400,000 Elixir on a massive Electro Dragon spam attack just to get a two-star victory and maybe break even on loot, the humble Goblin is sliding into a base, grabbing a million Gold, and leaving before the Eagle Artillery even wakes up. It’s about math. It’s about speed. And it’s about understanding that in a game named Clash of Clans, the real winner isn't the person with the most trophies—it’s the person with the most loot.
The Math Behind the Greed
Let's look at the raw numbers because they don't lie. At level 7, a Goblin has 68 Hit Points. That's nothing. A stiff breeze could kill him. But he does 52 damage per second (DPS) normally, which jumps to a massive 104 DPS when he's hitting a resource building. Because he targets Gold Mines, Elixir Collectors, and Dark Elixir Drills specifically, he isn't wasting time punching a Wall or a Builder's Hut while a Wizard Tower roasts him.
He is a specialist.
When you compare the housing space—only 1—to the damage output against resources, no other troop even comes close. You can fit five Goblins in the space of one Giant. Those five Goblins will chew through a storage unit faster than a Pekka could ever dream of. You just have to know how to deploy them without them getting vaporized.
Why Everyone Underestimates the Goblin in Clash of Clans
The biggest mistake players make is treating Goblins like Barbarians. If you just select all and dump them in a circle around a base, you’re going to have a bad time. They'll run straight for the nearest mine, group up into a tiny green ball of greed, and then a single Splash Damage hit will turn them all into ghosts.
It's painful to watch.
✨ Don't miss: Sex Fallout New Vegas: Why Obsidian’s Writing Still Outshines Modern RPGs
Most players try this once at Town Hall 5, lose their entire army in four seconds, and decide Goblins suck. They move on to "safer" strategies like Barch (Barbarians and Archers). But Barch is slow. Archers are weak and don't have the 2x damage multiplier against storages. If you want to actually max out your walls without spending five years doing it, you have to master the Goblin in Clash of Clans.
The Sneaky Transition
Everything changed when Supercell introduced Super Troops. If the standard Goblin is a nuisance, the Sneaky Goblin is a god-tier threat. For 25,000 Dark Elixir, you turn your Goblins into invisible ninjas for three days.
They become invisible to defenses for the first 5 seconds after deployment.
Think about that. You can drop a single Sneaky Goblin directly in front of a high-level Elixir Collector, and it will dismantle the entire thing while the X-Bows and Inferno Towers just watch helplessly. They literally cannot see him. This isn't just a "farming" strategy; it's a surgical strike. Top-tier players use them to "funnel" their main army or to snipe a Town Hall that’s sitting too close to the edge of a base. Since the Town Hall counts as a resource building, Goblins target it. A handful of Sneaky Goblins under a Haste Spell can take down a Town Hall 15 in the blink of an eye.
The "Goblin Knife" Strategy
Before Super Troops were a thing, pro farmers used a method called the "Goblin Knife." It’s still viable today for lower Town Hall levels where you can’t access Super Goblins yet. It’s a high-skill, high-reward move. Basically, you use Giants or a Golem to soak up damage, Wall Breakers to punch a hole straight to the core, and then you send in a literal "knife" of 100+ Goblins.
You need a Jump Spell. You need a Rage Spell. And you absolutely need a Heal Spell.
You drop the Jump to give them a path to the Dark Elixir storage. You drop the Rage so they move at warp speed. You drop the Heal to keep them alive through the inevitable Wizard Tower fire. If you time it right, the Goblins will ignore everything else, sprint into the center of the base, and delete the Dark Elixir storage in roughly 0.8 seconds. It’s a rush. It’s also the fastest way to upgrade your Archer Queen and Barbarian King.
🔗 Read more: Why the Disney Infinity Star Wars Starter Pack Still Matters for Collectors in 2026
Common Misconceptions and Failures
One thing people get wrong is thinking Goblins are only for "dead" bases—those bases where the owner hasn't logged in for weeks and the mines are full. Sure, they're great for that. But a skilled player uses the Goblin in Clash of Clans to break into active, high-level bases.
The limitation isn't the troop; it's the deployment.
- Don't drop them all in one spot.
- Do use "test" Goblins to check for Giant Bombs.
- Don't ignore the Clan Castle (Goblins won't fight back against defending troops until all resources are gone).
- Do pair them with Haste Spells to get them into the "blind spot" of Mortars.
The Psychology of the Green Guy
There is something deeply satisfying about winning a raid without ever trying to "win" the raid. In Clash of Clans, trophies are a vanity metric. Loot is the only thing that actually progresses your account. If you lose 30 trophies but walk away with 800,000 Gold and 6,000 Dark Elixir, you won. Period.
The Goblin represents a specific philosophy of play: Efficiency over ego.
I've seen players get frustrated because they can't get three stars. They're trying to use complex strategies they saw on YouTube, but their heroes are under-leveled. Why are their heroes under-leveled? Because they aren't farming enough Dark Elixir. It’s a cycle. The Goblin breaks that cycle. He doesn't care about stars. He doesn't care about your Clan War win streak. He wants the loot, and he wants it now.
Farming at Town Hall 11 and Beyond
Once you hit TH11, the game changes. This is where the Sneaky Goblin becomes your best friend. At this level, the cost of upgrades jumps significantly. We’re talking millions of Gold for a single cannon. If you’re relying on your League Bonus and a few successful attacks a day, you’ll be at TH11 for a year.
Using the Goblin in Clash of Clans (specifically the Super version) allows you to "limit test" your farming. You can theoretically attack 20 times an hour. You don't need a full army. You just need 5-10 Goblins per base to snip the outside collectors. You lose the battle, you drop some trophies, but your storages are constantly overflowing.
💡 You might also like: Grand Theft Auto Games Timeline: Why the Chronology is a Beautiful Mess
It’s the most "broken" mechanic in the game if you have the patience for it.
Hero Synergy
Don't forget the Grand Warden. If you’re doing a massive Goblin dive into the center of a base, his Eternal Tome ability is a lifesaver. It makes all those Goblins invincible for a few seconds. In that window of invincibility, 200 Goblins can effectively delete the entire core of a base, including the Clan Castle, the Town Hall, and every single storage.
It’s chaotic. It’s green. It’s beautiful.
The Archer Queen also plays a role here. Use her to pick off defenses that would otherwise target your Goblins, like a stray Multi-Inferno that’s roasting your green buddies from across the wall. The synergy isn't obvious, but it's there. You're using the most expensive units in the game to protect the cheapest ones.
Actionable Steps for Your Next Session
If you want to actually see results with the Goblin in Clash of Clans, stop treating them as an afterthought. Start a session with the specific goal of resource raiding.
- Train a full army of Goblins. If you’re TH11+, make them Sneaky Goblins.
- Bring 2 Jump Spells, 2 Haste Spells, and an Invis Spell. This gives you total control over where they go.
- Target bases with 600k+ loot. Don't settle for less. Look at the collectors (the little boxes on the side of the mines). If they're full, the loot is on the outside.
- Drop Goblins in pairs. One to trigger any traps, one to take the loot.
- Ignore your trophy count. You can always climb back up later. For now, focus on the "Bling."
- Upgrade your Goblins in the Lab. A level 1 Goblin is useless. A level 8 Goblin is a menace.
Stop worrying about the "perfect" three-star attack for a minute. Go into the matchmaking pool, find a whale of a base, and let the Goblins do what they were born to do. You’ll find that the game gets a lot easier when you actually have the resources to keep your Builders busy 24/7. Use the speed of the Goblin in Clash of Clans to outpace your rivals, and watch your base grow faster than it ever has before.